This invention in general relates to an improved wheel and more particularly to an improved aluminum wheel that results in various manufacturing cost savings.
In the prior art, tires are generally mounted on one-piece wheel members that comprised both a rim and a front disc for the wheel. These one-piece members were often heavy and expensive to manufacture. In many of these prior art wheels, the entire one-piece member was chrome-plated, since it is difficult to chrome-plate a selected area of a one-piece member. Chrome-plating is a relatively expensive process and it is undesirable that portions of the wheel that are to be hidden from view by a tire be chrome-plated.
There are prior art two-piece aluminum wheels, however, in these wheels the rim usually extends to the front position of the wheel and thus requires some chrome-plating.
In addition, the manufacturing of wheels requires complicated rolling machinery in order to form the rim and disc members that the tires are to be mounted upon. Such member require various undulations at locations set to standard SAE specifications.
This situation is further complicated by the fact that wheels are manufactured to various diameters, and each diameter is available in various widths. Each different diameter of wheel, and each width, requires a separate rolling machine station. Thus, the startup costs for manufacturing wheels is quite high.
It is an object of the present invention to make a lightweight, inexpensive aluminum wheel in which only the visible portions are chrome-plated and which requires relatively few rolling machine stations in order to be able to provide wheels for the various diameters and widths of standard wheels.